Peter Dille Talks PlayStation Move Success And PSP Plans

Recently, we caught up with Peter Dille, Senior Vice President of Marketing at Sony Computer Entertainment America, to discuss the subjects of delayed games, the upcoming launch of the PlayStation Move, the PSP, and he feels about the position of the two platforms, from the standpoint of third-party game support and success.

Soon after, the topic changed to that of niche games and how Sony plan to address that market, with promises of the PlayStation Network playing a big role in the process being made.

Maybe we can talk about PlayStation Move first. How do you feel about the launch so far?

Peter Dille, Senior Vice President of Marketing: We’re really excited about what PlayStation Move is doing. We announced a million 1.2 units shipped in North America.

Our European counterparts are at 1.5 million. Collectively, we’re really off to a great start. Some of the early units went off the line to Europe since they got multiple countries. We’ll certainly close the gap and catch up.

We kind of have a high class problem now, just chasing a hot product. If you go to retail sometimes its hard to find one because as soon as we’re shipping them to them they’re selling through, which we love, but we’d love to also have one for everyone who walks into the store. We have 24 games out right now. We’re going to have close to 40 games by the end of our fiscal [March 31, 2011]. We just shipped a couple of new great games, The Shoot, The Fight: Lights Out is coming soon, Singstar: Dance, stuff to be excited about.

You said before that PlayStation Move can broaden the PS3’s user base, but what about the hardcore crowd who already own Playstation 3s. Konami just announced No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise with Move support, but what other titles are there?

Hopefully, people will have a chance to check out Killzone [3] with the PlayStation Move. Again, I think that’s a game that’s going to get the core excited. Just by itself, its an awesome game. Add the fact it has move support and 3D support, Killzone [3] is going to be something to look forward to.

The good news is you don’t have to look that much forward to it , it’s right around the corner after Christmas. You always want to have something out there to keep the PlayStation Nation fired up. I think Killzone is going to do that.

What about third-party support? We haven’t seen too many third-party games yet.

Well, that’s coming. I think there is a gap between the time when publishers kind of got convinced. I think we turned some people around both at GDC and then at E3 when we showed off what PlayStation Move can really do. Obviously, we were having good conversations with them earlier, but when they started to see the precision it enabled. And then the creativity of things like Eyepet and Sorcery, I think light bulbs started going off.

What our third-party publisher guys told me is, it was at that point in time when they said we need to redouble our efforts on this platform and invest more. What that means is, if you’re making those decisions in the summer, you’re not going to see that content for Christmas. The good news is, it means the consumer will see a bunch of great third-party games, post-Christmas and into next year.

The other neat thing about PlayStation Move, in contrast to our competition, is you don’t have to do a standalone game to participate. With Kinect, it only plays a Kinect game. With PlayStation Move you can do Move-specific levels on an existing PlayStation 3 game and then play it with the DualShock or PlayStation Move. A great example of that is the Tiger Woods game. You can play it the traditional way, but you also have a new way to play the game with PlayStation Move. LittleBigPlanet from our studio has got some new functionality in the game along with Dualshock.

Speaking of LittleBigPlanet and SCEA’s holiday lineup. How do you feel about the holidays with the Gran Turismo 5 delay and the loss of LittleBigPlanet 2?

We feel great about the holidays. We’ve got great momentum and we’ve got a great line-up of games whether its move or GT5. As the person responsible for marketing the platform and as a huge fan of LittleBigPlanet, I wish I had it for the holidays. Those are tough decisions to make. What I would point to is that as much as it is a bummer to wait for something as important as that, our studio organization is on such a roll. Their attention to detail and quality is second to none.

The studios from Sony have the highest Metacritic in the business. I think the last time we were talking about this is an average 92 Metacritic score, which is just crazy. You sort of take your hat off to them and say LittleBigPlanet is a hugely important product, people’s expectations are high, the team at MediaMolecule are doing things no one in the industry is doing, and they need to make sure they get it right.

We need to respect that at the end of the day. We look forward to selling the hell out of it when it comes.

What about Gran Turismo 5 is it still on track for this year?

Yeah, Kazunori came out with a comment that they are working on a few last things. He apologized to the community, but explained it is coming before Christmas. We haven’t put a date to that yet, but we will just as soon as we get word from him when he’s done.

That’s just not for Japan, it’s for North America too?

That’s correct.

The PSP has a strong line-up of Japanese series including Monster Hunter, Final Fantasy, and Persona. While the handheld is thriving over there, in America the PSP seems to be struggling even though those games are coming over here. What do you think is the missing element, aside from trains.

[Earlier in an unrecorded chat, Dille mentioned how the success of PSP in Japan is in part due to people commuting via trains and playing the system during the ride.]

You know, we have sold 66 million worldwide. There is a big install base of PSP owners here. I think one of the things that have limited the business that I didn’t talk about in the room earlier, but which is a reality is piracy. That has limited a publisher’s ability to make money on the platform because it is a hacked platform. There is a lot of piracy, I’m sure you’re familiar with some of what’s going on. If you aren’t, you can find sites selling pirated games.

That’s something we’ve been trying to combat for awhile, but that’s not the only reason. It’s now in its sixth year and it’s typical for these devices to migrate down in age, so that’s where our focus is.

Now, the other thing that we’re doing is taking content, perhaps, from other markets or even other platforms. You know taking a PsOne product and bringing it over to the PSP platform. One of the cool things about the [PlayStation] Network is you might have an opportunity to make a game for your reader or core gamers that doesn’t have to go through mass market distribution.

A game that you could put on the PlayStation Network can find its audience because there is unlimited shelf space. Even if retail is saying this won’t do the number of turns I need, the audience isn’t big enough at the big box retailer it still might be something they can sell online on the PlayStation Store. We’re trying to encourage publishers to make sure they exhaust their internal catalogs and content and keep that on the platform as well.

How do you feel you can better promote these kinds of niche products? How do you set up these partnerships like the import store with MonkeyPaw and make sure people are aware of them?

One of the neat things about the PlayStation Network from marketing perspective is we can follow your interests. In the past when the business was an unconnected business you relied on people filling out registration cards to know what they liked.

Fortunately today, just like when you go to Amazon it knows what you like, when you come back to the PlayStation Network, we can identify what you like as a gamer. Are you a sports gamer? Are you into shooters, etc? We can do a better job at marketing directly to people and tailor to those interests.

This week we launched the PlayStation Rewards program, which I’m really excited about as a marketing person because its something we’ve been working hard on from a couple years to get all of these data feeds into a place where we can create a program around it. Just from the initial announcement this morning, I’m seeing some great feedback on the [PlayStation] blog. People are like "this is going to be cool."

That’s a great way to say, if you played Monster Hunter 1 and Monster Hunter 2 is coming, we can talk directly to those people. We can share that capability with other publishers to get them excited about it as well.

Can you talk about the Japanese PsOne game import store? Like how MonkeyPaw along with PlayStation Network made an import section?

That’s really publisher by publisher. We encourage them to bring those types of products to this market, but we can’t make them do it. What we try to do is say there is a market for this, your content can find success.

Again, if the retail channel doesn’t want to look at some of those niche products this is where I think the PlayStation Network comes in handy. We can have products that don’t require the type of velocity that you have at retail.

Is Sony thinking about doing that with their internal studios. Games like the Ape Escape franchise was once popular here and is on PSP in Japan, but those games haven’t come out. Are you thinking about using PSN as a channel?

Well, I’m not sure that they haven’t not come out…

Games like the racing game and the PSP platformers…

Whenever the next Ape Escape comes out, it’ll be available in the US market. You have my commitment. If the retail community isn’t excited about it, we’ll put it on the PlayStation Network so that gamers can get it.

What about Tokyo Jungle, which was shown at Tokyo Game Show?

I don’t want to get into specifics of that title, but I think we look at all content from our studio organization and try to make sure it finds the biggest audience we can. As you probably know, it costs a lot to make these games and you want to make sure you amortize that over the biggest audience possible. There’s no reason you can’t get these games published even if the scale is less than a GT or a God of War.

Sony has a 3D push in one direction and Nintendo is going in a smaller, portable direction. How do you feel about the Nintendo 3DS?

Our perspective is they are doing something different and that’s what Nintendo does. They’ve got their own view, Sony has their own view. Our hope is they do it well because we’re big advocates of 3D. We need consumers to have good 3D experiences.

I actually haven’t seen much of their technology. I know people are excited about it. I’ve heard a little bit that if you move your head a certain way you might lose the image. I just hope they do a great job, building a great 3D platform so people are interested in other 3D platforms. Because, collectively, we need to make sure a consumer has a good experience with 3D however they’re experiencing it so they have an interest in more 3D.

Yes, that is just how sony is, quality over everything, that is why i love this company, all the stuff they make is really high quallity, they never rush more than they need to, and if is necessary they will hold the things up so they can be released perfectly

Well, my Triple still hasn’t red-ringed. And as far as first party software goes, the Metacritic numbers do speak for themselves. Things only go wrong when Sony outsources development, like with most of the Move titles available now.

Hraesvelgr

I’m talking specifically about their hardware here, which has never been particularly good. Third-party games are what made Sony’s gaming division so popular, because the original PSX was of poor quality. After they got the issues that plagued the PS2 for the first 2-3 years fixed, it became better, but it still wasn’t a high quality piece of hardware. Again, third-party games are what made the PS2.The PS3, admittedly, is probably their best made hardware to date, but it’s still not perfect and a majority of the good games are available on either the 360, PC or even Wii, as well. And please, don’t throw the metacritic defense out there, I’m not interested in it. Reviews are opinions and are not indicative of quality. Uncharted 2 is rated at 96 on metacritic, whereas Romancing SaGa on the PS2 is rated at 58, so that really means nothing to me.And I don’t think I really need to get into the PSP, but it’s probably the worst gaming hardware they’ve made to date. It has some good games, most of which are ports of older games, but the hardware is awful. I’ve never heard much of anything positive about the PSP hardware, only that it ends up breaking or is defective in some way out of the box or within the first 3-6 months.I’ll say it again. Third-party games are what made Sony’s gaming division great, not the hardware. That they choose to largely ignore or reject third-party developers these days is a real shame.

They’ve all got solid games, and none of them break like a soggy poop, so it’s all good.

Hraesvelgr

Well, yeah, I can agree with this. Wasn’t really my intention to start any console war “debate”, if that’s where it was going.

Yusaku_Matsuda70s

Quite a number of blunt statements you’re making there. I’ll agree with your statement about the PS2 being defined by 3rd parties, but the PS3… not so much. Disregarding console comparisons, and regardless of whether or not you like their efforts, Sony’s poured a lot of time and money into both making first party exclusives and securing third party ones. Please, name some examples of how Sony’s ignoring or rejecting third party devs.”Reviews are opinions and are not indicative of quality.” So what is indicative then? If you don’t believe anyone’s word what do you go by when you buy a game? And who’s to believe you when you say it’s good?

Code

rar, quality can only be indicated by intensive lab testing, with lasers +o+’

Really? They seem to be pretty good partners with Valve and Electronics Arts as of late, which they seem to have exciting words for, and they always have praise for their third party partners. So where is this idea of ignoring or rejecting third party developers coming from?

Uncharted 2 was universally rated that by tons of reviewers and consumers alike, Romancing SaGa was probably a game that only the gaming elite could enjoy or just had some fatal flaws at its core that had to be ignored or overcome in order for one to truly enjoy a game. As is in this article, Sony first party is where its at and Sony produces some pretty awesome games.

As is my belief, High Quality Good Games Beget good and wide appeal.

Code

rar, I know it’s my own personally experience but I just don’t think PS3 is any better then PS2 as far as quality is concerned, I’ve never had to have any system repaired until I got the PS3, first the disc drive died just under 2 years in, and then the touch buttons went literally a month later omo;I’ve owned two PS2’s a launch unit which has been working fine to this day and a slim which also has been an excellent little system, with no problems. I do realize it’s all an individual experience and that most launch PS2 I guess did die sooner or later. rar, although I did see a friend fix a launch PS2 with a screw driver, a shoe, and some tape >w<;Don’t get me wrong though, I like Sony and my PS3 (I’d like it a whole lot more if it wasn’t falling apart >w<;), but yeahh I don't think any of there systems are particularly "high quality" post-launch PS2's though if you ask me were one of there better systems. That being said I don't think any system this generation has been particularly reliable other then perhaps the DS.

Tokyo Guy

Oh if I could only count how many PSOne machines I had to buy…the same goes with the PS2…

NeoTechni

Your comment was the joke

Yui

*points to PlayStation 2*

(Purely the first thing in my head. Of course, every other Sony console could be a substitute too. =D)

Seems you had some bad luck in your life with sony uh?, everything ive brought from sony until now, is still working perfectly, and they exceed my expectations

Hraesvelgr

No, I’ve had pretty good luck with my Sony hardware, actually – I’m just willing to admit that they don’t have good quality hardware. I’ve also never had any issues with my 360, which I’ve had since 2007, despite the supposed failure rate. What do you suppose people would say to that? And despite that, it doesn’t change the fact that the 360 isn’t a high quality piece of hardware.

But im talking about Sony in general, game hardwares, electronics, cellphones! (my sony ericcson phones is perfect and durable, have all i need).Microsoft, is just microsoft :P. I never really liked the xbox so i cant say anything about it, but ive seen lots of them had problems, havent seen that much about the ps3 though. Still, i can’t say anything, i dont really like to talk about things i havent even touched. I even went to a friend’s house, he had an xbox, and i liked the “firmware” style it had, but i just dont like the xbox xD

Hraesvelgr

Sony in general? They’re… okay, I guess. I know to avoid their laptops and TVs, but I haven’t really bothered with many of their other products. I do remember having a very early Walkman CD player that survived many drops against hard surfaces (particularly brick or metal).

People would say that in order to prove that any system apparently is not good quality that we need to take a sample of the population of owners and conduct statistical tests to gauge whether or not the proportion of all Sony hardware owners who experience hardware issues is high (>50%?), and the same for the Xbox 360 hardware (which we do have values for a randomized sample)…

Of course this is better than just gauging ones response on personal experiences or a small number of posters on a gaming enthusiast website.

Sorry, but lets compare apples to apples. SO xbox vs ps3 in this instance. You sound like you are in the VAST minority in that you havent had an xbox go south on you. But make no mistake you are the minority. A majority of gamers have had at least one xbox go to crap on them for some reason or another. I am on my 3rd. I still have my original PS3 though> So I guess our experiences aer opposite, yes? But as a whole, more people are having issues with the xbox as oppposed to the ps3. You cant deny that. And to me that means the Xbox is the inferior quality hardware. Sorry… whatever your experiences are that is the truth.

My Sony NetMD died from a similar failure involving the drive as my first PSP. I don’t think there’s a significant connexion there but I do think that Sony products aren’t necessarily as durable as their reputation.

Having said that, I stand by their headphones 100%.

Regardless of this, I think there’s a problem not so much with Sony’s hardware but with their support of said hardware in certain markets. In Europe, despite ‘the Summer of PSPgo’, it still feels as if SCEE is holding both the UMD driven PSP and the go at arms length and not giving the platform the full support it deserves.

Europe got the PSP camera and the PSP game Invizimals before US and responded to it with huge success, also better connectivity options with the PSP over there, I think they are giving the PSP great focus and support.

I want to agree with you, but I simply don’t feel that an early release date or a camera peripheral entails great support. I am aware that Sony can only push retailers and developers so far but over here, but nonetheless there is more that the company could do firsthand to support the device in the market.

Im so excited for Gran Turismo 5. That game looks and sound awesome and will be, truly, the best simulation racer this year and perhaps the second best racer this year (after, the awesome Split/Second and Need for Speed Hot Pursuit!). The cars look so gorgeous, the tracks look so gorgeous, in fact everything looks so gorgeous and sounds so awesome. The weather effects and day/night transitions were glories to behold. Im going to be so proud to add GT5 to my collection.

LittleBigPlanet 2, as long as they take time to fix and make the jumping a bit less floaty than it was in the first game then I am glad. That game also looks mindblowing and sounds amazing. The level designs and creators are going to have so much fun and Im going to have utter amounts of fun playing through their levels. I hope they can craft together huge story arcs in the levels since they can be tied together, if I remember correctly.

Truly the Playstation 3 is where its at for awesome, gorgeous, fantastical, wonderful games, and 1st party titles with over 92% metacritic average…wow, that is just epic, Sony makes some pretty awesome high caliber breakneck games and I have plenty of them!!!! Firsty party gaming at its finest!

I will pick up a Move with Sorcery though because that looked like the coolest Move game to date. I hope they offer a bundle with it too! And with close to 3 mln sales coming this quarter, I think we can safely say that gamers have spoken…they want a robust and precise control system that the Wii just cant offer with games that are fully realized and enabled on powerful hardware capable of delivering excellent high definition graphics and a continuous flow of quality games for videogame enthusiasts and the casual gamer household.

Finally 66 mln PSP units is awesome and I hope they continue to support and convince publishers to get their games onto the PSN. I wont call out companies but some of them have been lacking with getting new releases up there cause the fanbase of games to be angry since they have the GO or do not want to get releases of games in the brick and mortar store but then being unable to buy them on the PSN. If the PSP is in its 6th year, I hope its time to introduce and bring out the PSP2, I can not wait for it! As long as the PSP is shown more love I am happy, I love how my PSP collection has been growing and there are so many awesome experiences, that are truly only enabled on the PSP, that I enjoy. Its done an excellent job of bringing near console like experiences to the palm of my hands in a portable piece of technology to be enjoyed at home and at school, and has served as a huge part of my videogaming life.

This was truly one of the best features on this site to date! !!!!

Yusaku_Matsuda70s

Good to see Sony isn’t really big on rushing things out the door when it comes to their big games. Though that’s also a weakness sometimes, as they also don’t seem to rush or push very hard when it comes to releasing or marketing anything, unlike Nintendo or Microsoft. That’s the impression I get of Sony: a laid back tiger, full of power and ready to pounce but really just likes to flash its shiny claws every once in a while. While I’m talking about animals, it would seem Mr. Dille has just confirmed Tokyo Jungle for release here. :)

EDIT: Upon consideration, I take it back. Sony tries just as hard as anyone else, it’s just that the efforts are long term and the results show slower.

Interesting how he didn’t want to say anything about Tokyo Jungle.
I know Dille is an important figure at SCEA, but I doubt he’s up to speed with everything SCEJ has brewing on the software side. Maybe he hasn’t even heard of the game.

NeoTechni

Sony damn well better announce a 3D PSP2 shortly. They need to nip 3DS in the bud and not give it an XBOX360-style headstart

Please no 3D! 3D in movies is already bad enough as it causes, after 1:30 minutes unease and such. It is just a bit to take in when viewing 3D on a screen of any size or nature.

I want more raw power, more gorgeous graphics, more space for games, basically a portable PS3 with at least 6 hours of battery life, a screen that is at least 4 inches, a quieter disc drive, good sound quality, lightweight, single screened, dual analogs, traditional gaming experiences.

NeoTechni

It will be optional of course, but a lot of the people buying 3DS are buying it solely cause it’s 3D. And if Sony doesnt want to be playing catchup later on like they did with Wii/Move, they had better jump on that train now.

I’m not entirely sure the angle you’re coming from here, sir. You seem to be disparaging the ‘gimmicks’ of Nintendo consoles whilst claiming that Sony needs these exact same approaches in order to innovate.

If 3D is a gimmick on the Nintendo 3DS, then surely it would be just as much of a gimmick on a Sony portable.

Hraesvelgr

With all the hype for the 3DS and the bad reputation that the PSP has, I don’t think it would really matter. The PSP2 is also almost guaranteed to be more expensive than the 3DS, which won’t help it.

NeoTechni

“and the bad reputation that the PSP has”

The nonexistent bad reputation.

Hraesvelgr

You really don’t think it has one?

NeoTechni

At 66 million sales you’d have to be delusional to think it does have one

Hraesvelgr

You’re also delusional if you think 66 million sales means there are no issues with the hardware that has given it a negative reputation. I will concede that the reputation isn’t nearly as bad as it used to be, but it’s still there.

NeoTechni

I never said there were no issues. But there is a huge difference between having issues and having a bad reputation. Everything has isues.

there is also a huge difference between selling 66 million and having a bad reputation

God how I wish Kevin Butler would fly down from a helicopter Ouendan style, then caress my PS3 making the damn touch buttons work again T_T’

Aoshi00

I saw Major Nelson last night for like a split second lol.. him and his crew just passed by us. Kudo Tsunoda was being a good sport and taking pictures w/ the fans though.. but basically we were just standing in the cold and miss whatever shows they put on on Broadway :(…

I gotta play Heavy Rain again w/ Move.. to kill everyone off to get the perfect crime ending :)

I wouldn’t want Tsunoda to touch me. He looks like he reeks of sweat and beer.

Aoshi00

I thought of whipping out my camera and ask to take a pic, then I thought nah… friendly guy though..

Tokyo Guy

It’s amusing that the Playstation Move is so popular overseas, but it has been a complete flop here. I actually picked up a Starter Back with Beat Sketch for over $12 under the retail price simply because the store I bought it from is trying to actually move units.

As for the Move itself, I think it’s impressive in terms of how intelligently based the motion sensing technology is (something Nintendo totally failed at) yet at the same time, it’s more of a hassle to use. Because with the Wiimote, you can literally just sit still and twist your twist in different directions and the cursor will move, whereas with the Move you need to actually move your entire arm.

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